By Grockle
May 27 2023

The first two matches of the 2023 Vitality T20 Blast have taken place for Somerset, 1 at home against the 2022 Champions Hampshire and then an away fixture in Hove against Sussex.  How did the slightly different squad do against the hawks and the Sharks?  Tom Banton, Will Smeed, Ben Green, Roelof van der Merwe got the chance to make their claims to first team places while Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Matt Henry make their county white ball debuts.

Vitality Blast v Hampshire @ Taunton Wednesday 26 May 2023

Lewis Gregory won the toss and put the visitors in, he left out Lewis Goldsworthy and Josh Davey from the 13 man squad announced and chose Ben Green as the 11th member of the first Vitality side (see our last frontpage conversation on the white ball season)

Craig Overton opened Somerset's assault from the River end against McDermott and Vince at the head of a pretty formidable Hampshire frontline.  It did not take long for him to get success as he had McDermott caught by TKC for 3 with only 4 on the board.

Matt Henry opened his account from the MT Pavilion end and dismissed James Vince (who played on) with his first ball in Somerset's coloured kit (at least the bowling version of it).  Within 7 balls Weatherley and Prest were in and the Hampshire opening pair were back in the dressing room and the opening attack were on fire.

3 overs in Hampshire were 11 for 2 and the Somerset infield were keeping it tight with a superb cover save by Abell.  This was followed by another wicket as Weatherly was caught by one bowler - Overton off the other Henry.  12 for 3 with Albert as the new batsman.  There were no boundaries in the first 5 overs.

The first four arrived off Henry from Prest in the 6th over, Albert also scooped the bowler to the Botham and the Powerplay ended with the batting side on 26 for 3.  It looked like the plan was to bowl Overton through and it paid off as Prest almost missed a ball caught by Banton and the visitors were 26 for 4. Albert then did the same and got the same result and Sussex were suddenly 27 for 5 Craig finished with 3 for 8 off his 4 overs with 17 dot balls.  Superb control.

Whiteley and Dawson had a mountain to climb with 7 overs gone and they got on with the task to the best of their abilities against the first change of bowler.  They faced Peter Siddle from the MT which meant there  was an intention to keep Henry back with one over to come.  Lewis Gregory came on at the River to replace our number one bowler.  He went for 2 boundaries in his first six balls.  However it then looked like there would be some variation in length of spells as Ben Green took the 10th.  Liam Dawson pushed his county past 50 and Siddle changed ends for the 11th and gave Dawson a working over as that over only gave 3 runs.  Lewis also changed ends and this change resulted in the next wicket as the Sussex spinner scooped a weak attempt at a boundary to the waiting Overton who accepted the catch gratefully.  He went for 15 and the Hawks slumped to 56 for 6.

Currie didn't stay long however as he bottom edged Gregory at the end of the 12th and it remained 56 but for 7.  Green returned for the 13th from the River and excellent infielding from RvdM keeping Ellis from attacking as he came up the wicket to him. Whitely at the other end was also looking to push a small score on and it was 61 for 7 after the 14th. Green bowled, he hit and TKC took an excellent catch on the boundary at the Botham to make it 61 for 8.  In came Wood who provided Green with another wicket courtesy of a superb full diving catch from the irrepressable Overton It was 61 for 9 and the Hampshire press were starting to ask what their lowest score against Somerset is (It is 91 in 2017 at the Rosebowl).

Mason Crane arrived at the crease and the home side quite rightly re-introduced Henry to get this over with, he nearly got a wicket with his first ball but he ended his spell with 4 overs for 32 with 12 dots and 2 wickets - not a bad start to his Vitality career with the county.  It was Ben Green who got the last one, again courtesy of COve as he took a runnning catch on the boundary to dismiss Sussex for 74 - the lowest score that county has ever scored against any side in the Vitality Blast.  They had been absolutely overwhelmed.

The Somerset Reply

We opened with Tom Banton (who has had very little cricket for a while - only 4 balls in his two T20 innings for the seconds) and Will Smeed who because of his white ball only contract has only been playing league cricket up until now.    Wood opened the bowling to Banton from the River. and he got the first boundary in the first over as he opened his account in the correct strip (the bet on who would make the kit mistake first was won by those betting on RvdM who played for the seconds in the wrong shirt because they did not have a long sleeved version for him of the right one!!). 6 for 1 after the opening salvo.

Ellis opened his night's bowling from the MT, he looked dangerous and our opening pair looked a little 'rusty'  but we had 8 by the end of the second.  However, Tom B did get on with his game scooping Ellis for 6 and then driving Currie's first ball to the boundary when he came on as first change.  He was taking most of the strike and making most of the runs.  Will is still looked 'off the boil' but he was still there after Wood's 5th and a score of 28.

The 6th over from Ellis saw Banton ramp him to the CA to go to 25 and then send him to the Caddyshack for another boundary. Smeed tried the same tactics but he only got an edge to Prest which went straight to Prest and we were 1 down as the young man departed for an indifferent 5 off 13 balls towards the end of the over.  In came TKC and Ellis immediately went through him.

Dawson was introduced at the River and Banton took 10 off him with a six and a four but the spinner is not a debutant at this and he saw the young keeper coming with the next ball, threw it wide of him and had him stumped in no man's land for 40 off 24 balls.  48 for 2 and in came Abell.

From there it was over pretty quickly, Currie took the 8th and we finished it at 61 for 2.  After 9 it was 69 for 2 and we all had a feeling that TKC would look to finish it with a 6 off Crane.  He murdered a ball by sending it like a rocket to the boundary along the floor to tie the scores and then took a quick single to seal the win by 8 wickets with 10.3 overs to spare.

A pretty decisive start to a Somerset T20 season with Hampshire absolutely blown away.

The First Flush of Vitality

Discussion started by Grockles.com , 29/05/2023 14:07

Grockles.com
29/05/2023 14:07

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:06:01:11:35:09 by Grockle.

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Grockle
29/05/2023 20:03

Was going to add this to the white ball intro... then realised I wrote a frontpage for thatvso this will stand alone. Will write a second one for the Sussex gsme and on from there

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